Holiday in Cambodia

Last night as I sat down for my first beer at the Okay Guesthouse in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, I rallied a few wild-eyed travelers for what could have been the adventure of a life time. We ended up riding in three tuk-tuks for two hours across this entire city to try something so insane, so monumentally weird and dangerous that you simply will not believe it can be done. Not only does it defy common sense in every part of the world, it is illegal in Cambodia, the land in which there are no laws. But I’m not going to tell you what is…yet.

I’ve always been an outgoing person. I don’t know when I changed from being the awkward nerdy type to the center of activity but I’m now quite comfortable being the instigator and focal point for reckless backpackers on my trips. In the dining hall of the Okay Guesthouse in Phnom Penh, I started rolling up a core of fearless adventurers to head into the sticky night. I first grabbed Brad, a 6’4″ Californian on break from his studies in USC’s exchange program to Bangkok. With him was another student of the same program that hails from Austria, a Frenchman, two American girls, and a couple from Sweden. We killed several tall beers before the talk of serious adventure arose.

I’ll tell you now that I’m not going to say exactly what we pursued last night. What I will say is that I’m talking about eating an animal. And not just any animal and not just any way. I’m talking about capturing, preparing, skinning, drinking, and eating the contents of something you didn’t think could be. Despite Cambodia’s laws prohibiting the very handling of this animal, the idea of its consumption is so mysterious and intriguing, I am compelled to find it. We failed in our attempts to do this last night but have arranged for a remote, lawless chef in the outskirts of forgotten Cambodia to capture and hold the beast for a meal tonight.

Cambodia is strange and wonderful in a way that I have not seen before. Crossing from Vietnam we saw a country of unbearable poverty. Trash was knee-deep along most of the highway and wild cows were scattered throughout the land (more on the roads than the fields of grass.) The decay and poverty were oppressive and disheartening. And the crescendo of this neglect occurred at a ferried river crossing 30 km from the city. The 95 degree temperature soaked the impoverished natives that walked around offering deep-fried finch and cockroaches as well as less exotic items of eggs and fruit. But when our boat exited the ferry on the other side, a more charming version of the country appeared.

On the Phnom Penh side of the river, things were measurably nicer. Trash does collect in every vacant lot like any other place in SE Asia, but the poor hovels of the locals seemed more kept-up livable. Where Saigon had 60 motorbikes for every automobile, Phnom Penh has only 10 motorbikes for every car. More cars and wider roads give this a slightly more western feel. But in the back alleys the west fades and this city is all Asia.

Our wayward group last night after failing to acquire our forbidden fruit settled into a Mexican restaurant (ha!) for quesadillas, salsa, and Cambodian beer. As we stumbled into the night air looking for fun we came upon a club with live, thumping, Cambodian dance music. We stepped in (there are no covers for white people in a poor land) and started ordering pitchers.

We stepped into the steamy club and saw hundreds of kids in some sort of balloon-separated middle school dance to western-sounding dance music accompanies with high-pitched Cambodian lyrics. Cambodia has a strange age distribution, with 40% of the population being under the age of 18. This club bore that out with ages ranging from 15 to perhaps 22. And if Quentin and Brad weren’t standing next to me, I would have been the tallest person in the place.

A couple of pitchers later, we group of white travelers (need I say we were the only white faces in the place) took to the dance floor and started a riot of excitement. We were treated like movie stars with the crowd surrounding our circle and clapping and high-fiving as we grooved to strange Cambodian versions of Kylie Minogue and Zombie Nation. Locals taught us their line dance and led us through the group to meet their friends. This in spite of the fact that words were not shared between us; only smiles. After several hours and many pitchers we settled up on the $20 bill.

Speaking of US dollars…they’re more common in Cambodia than their own currency. I went to an ATM last night and it actually provided me US cash with no option of getting the local currency. Breaking a $20 is going to be difficult in this country but I’ll have to figure out some way to do it. Today I’m going to hire a Tuk-tuk driver to take me to the killing fields. That should only cost a few bucks. But dropping these twenties is going to be easy tonight as our forbidden prey will cost $40-60 to find and prepare. And that is a fortune in this strange land.